# Animism; state diagrams; puzzles

**URL:** <http://discourse.iapct.org/t/animism-state-diagrams-puzzles/1108>\
**Category:** CSG1995\
**Created:** [November 11, 1995, 7:39pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/animism-state-diagrams-puzzles/1108 "1995-11-11T19:39:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![William\_T\_Powers4](http://discourse.iapct.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/977dab/32.png) [@William\_T\_Powers4](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/William_T_Powers4)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 1995, 7:39pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/animism-state-diagrams-puzzles/1108/1 "1995-11-11T19:39:21Z")

</div>

[From Bill Powers (951111.1210 MST)]

Fred Nickols, 951111, 0805 EastCoastTime --

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Is the use of "animism" above a special, technical definition of  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;that term peculiar to PCT? Animism is customarily and widely taken  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;to mean a belief that natural objects and phenomena have souls.

This term doesn't have any particular technical meaning in PCT.  
Attributing "souls" to natural objects and phenomena isn't in itself the  
point; the main point is the mistaken attribution of purposes and  
intentional behavior to systems that don't have the kind of organization  
needed to support purposes and intentions.

An example would be saying that evolution has made the giraffe's neck  
long so the giraffe can reach the leaves on a tree that other animals  
can't reach. This makes evolution into an active agent which intends for  
giraffes to be able to eat the highest leaves, and adjusts the length of  
the giraffe's neck in order to achieve this goal. Another example would  
be to explain that an animal presses a bar in a certain way because  
reinforcements have caused it to do so. This attributes to  
reinforcements the ability to pick a particular behavior that, if it  
occurred, would produce a certain consequence (producing more  
reinforcement) and then to act on the behavior to achieve that goal.  
Since a reinforcer is often nothing but a bit of food or a drop of  
water, it certainly doesn't have the organization necessary to do this.  
A property of a living control system is being attributed to an  
inanimate object.

When primitive peoples attributed souls to a natural phenomenon like  
lightning, the reason was that souls can act purposively to create  
intended ends; the effect of the lightning was treated as if it were  
created on purpose. If lighting destroyed your neighbor's house, you  
would go through rituals in which you implored the lightning not to  
destroy your house, too. You saw the devastation of your neighbor's  
house as though the lighting had some way of selecting that effect and  
then bringing it about, just the way a person can select effects and  
then bring them about.

Control theory describes and explains systems that can vary their  
actions to bring about preselected ends. In that sense, control theory  
supports the concepts that led to animism. However, it also shows what  
kind of internal organization is needed in order to demonstrate this  
effect, and thus it shows that primitive attributions of purpose were  
often misplaced. The best way to keep your house from being destroyed by  
lighting is not to try to dissuade the lighting from its purposes, but  
to get a lightning rod.

> **···**
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------  
> Bruce Abbott (111195.1230 EST) --  
> Re: state sets
> 
> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;... such [state] diagrams could also document the relationships in  
> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;a sequence-level control system. Different states would define  
> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;different active control systems.
> 
> I would say they're mnore likely to document relationships in a program-  
> level control system. A sequence is strictly a linear ordered list of  
> occurrences. There are no tests or choice-points. In a state diagram  
> like the one you used for illustration, there's at least one implicit  
> test. Switching to a different state depends on which state you're in  
> and can be just a sequence, but a time-delay entails a test repeating  
> until the elapsed time reaches a predetermined value. Only if the device  
> can operate without any tests at all would it be treatable as a  
> sequence.  
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------  
> Gary Cziko 951111.1722 GMT --
> 
> Nice reprise of your rubber-band demos. It strikes me that we ought to  
> be generating some demos as puzzles that people can use as self-tests to  
> see if they grasp the principles of PCT. One of our explanatory problems  
> is that people reach varying degrees of understanding of PCT without  
> realizing what they have left to learn. Your rubber-band-and-string demo  
> could be structured as a series: first the straight demo and a request  
> for an explanation, then the demo using the string operated by the other  
> hand again followed by a request for an explanation. When we just run  
> through these demos from beginning to end, we supply not only the  
> questions but the answers, so the watcher gets no practice in PCT  
> thinking.
> 
> Here's a demo that Ed Ford thought up, which can be used as a test  
> puzzle.
> 
> Connect eight rubber bands in this pattern:
> 
> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\ /  
> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\ /  
> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;=======  
> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\>\> \>\>  
> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\>\> \>\>  
> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;======  
> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;/ \  
> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;/ \
> 
> Get four people to hold the free ends. Ask them to "make a square." They  
> will do so. One question that can be asked is, how do they do this?
> 
> But the real puzzle question is, what can one of the people do to make  
> the square be some different size, and still square? What can one person  
> do to change the orientation of the square without changing its shape?  
> (Assume nobody else is doing the same things)
> 
> Here's another puzzle.
> 
> Link three rubber bands end-to-end in a chain, with an experimenter  
> holding one end and the controller holding the other. This means there  
> are two knots. The controller-person is allowed to pick one knot to  
> control; the experimenter-person has to determine which knot is under  
> control. How can the experimenter prove that one knot is most likely  
> under control and the other most likely isn't? Second question: can the  
> experimenter find the answer by calculating the correlation of the  
> experimenter's hand movements with those of the controller? Third  
> question: how could correlations be used to determine which knot is  
> under control?
> 
> Another:
> 
> Knot three rubber bands together at a common point. E grasps one, C  
> grasps the second, and the third is left dangling. E moves one end  
> around and C maintains the knot over the dot. What will C do if a third  
> party grasps the third rubber band and pulls it toward the direction of  
> C's hand?
> 
> Another:
> 
> C and E are interacting as usual, but C is making the knot move in a  
> repetive SLOW sine wave laterally across the dot (at right angles to the  
> line of the rubber bands). What can E do that will bring C's hand to a  
> standstill while the knot continues to move side-to-side in a sine-wave  
> as before?
> 
> A person who understands PCT can work out the answers to all these  
> puzzles just by applying basic principles. Since they are all rubber-  
> band demos, the same person can then perform a test to see if the answer  
> was correct. Subjective correlations will be good enough to answer the  
> question about using correlations. Doing the demo before working out the  
> answer is cheating.
> 
> Tell me how you make out, folks. If you got the right answers, fine, but  
> if you made a mistake, I'd like to hear about it: it's the errors we  
> learn from.  
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------  
> Best to all,
> 
> Bill P.